


A Dragon For Soren

by Khaleesi_0f_Trolls



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Magefam, POV Soren (The Dragon Prince), Post-Season/Series 03, Stuffed Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28545636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khaleesi_0f_Trolls/pseuds/Khaleesi_0f_Trolls
Summary: While cleaning out Viren's old lab, Soren and his friends stumble upon an old stuffed dragon he hasn't seen in years, bringing back old memories both happy and painful
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Old Toys

"Goodness, how much mess did this man have in this room?" Opeli asks as Rayla tossed another few books off the shelves from the ladder. "And I thought he was more organized than me!"

"He was kind of a hoarder." Soren admits as he collects the books from the floor. "I think he mentioned once about wanting to clean the clutter in his lab, but never got around to do it. But hey, at least we're doing it for him!"

It had been barely a day since they arrived back from Xadia, and the first thing Opeli had suggested was clearing out Viren's entire lab of his books, potions and materials of dark magic, and everyone was more than happy to help. So far they had cleared out the shelves of the glass bottles and jars full of colorful liquid and preserved carcasses of dead animals, and right now they were gathering all the books to decide what to do with them later.

"This room still gives me the creeps." Callum says as he catches a book Rayla tossed to him. "I can't believe he has all this stuff, how are you not grossed out by all this Soren?"

"You don't think I'm severely grossed out about the stuff my father and sister use to do their magic?" The knight asks and gags. "Yeah they've been using their magic to heal me when I'd get scraped up or injured a bit badly, but having to sit and watch them chop up the little creatures or squish them so they can mix them with something or shove it into my mouth was beyond disgusting."

"I'm going to be so glad when we finish getting rid of all this." Rayla says with a shudder before tossing another book down. "Oh? What's this?"

"What did you find?" Callum asks as Rayla pulls something small and blue out of the shelf.

"I think...this is a stuffed toy?" The elf said as she holds up the object. "Kind of ripped up, but it looks like a storm dragon? Why would Viren have this?

"Hey! You found him!" Soren exclaims as he rushed over to the shelves and grabbed the blue thing. "I've been looking for this little guy since I was nine!"

"And that's…"

"Mister Flameo! Callum, remember him? I let you play with him when you were sad?"

"Oh I remember!" Callum laughs as he walks over to examine the toy. "I was wondering what happened to him. You were moping for a whole week after admitting you lost him."

"Why wouldn't I be upset? This little guy was my best friend!" Soren says as he holds the toy up to examine it. It was in terrible shape, missing both button eyes, multiple holes where mice and moths nibbled away at the cloth, the little cloth flame that once stuck out was now gone as well, the whole thing was faded, and it was missing quite a lot of stuffing. "Man, dad really made sure I couldn't find you. Would have been nice if he never took you away, I really could have used your company for some sad times."

As long as Soren could remember, the stuffed blue dragon had always been at his side. His oldest memory of the toy was when he was maybe about four and fighting with Claudia over it, refusing to let her take it to play dress up or whatever she wanted to use him for. He got scolded by his father for not sharing his toys with his sister, despite his arguments that Flameo was his and his only. Of course the next day his mother gave Claudia a stuffed unicorn she made that was roughly the same size as her, resulting in his baby sister to stop pestering him to let her play with his dragon.

"Well, we'll get this patched up later, we must finish cleaning the mess first." Opeli says, breaking Soren from his thoughts. "Just put it somewhere for now so you won't lose it."

"She's right, we'll fix it later." Rayla says before turning her attention back to the book shelf. "And the sooner we finish, the sooner we can go to supper."

* * *

"Crap, this certainly isn't fixable." Soren mutters as he tries to sew the biggest hole on the dragon toy closed. It seemed like every time he tried to fix a noticeable hole Flameo seemed to have another rip open somewhere else. He didn’t even know the first thing about sewing, and he didn’t want to take the old toy to the castle’s tailor to fix up, she was already busy enough as it was and tossing her an old dragon toy to fix that seemed to be beyond repair just didn’t sit right with him. The only person he could think of who could probably fix it without messing it up further was...his mother.

_ Come to think of it, how is she doing now? _ He wonders as he removes the needle from the thread and sets his old toy down on his bed. He hadn’t heard from her in years, aside from the occasional letter she’d send to him and Claudia on their birthdays and the one she sent him earlier this year to congratulate him on earning a spot in the crownguard and quickly rising in the ranks to the captain position. And according to Opeli, Del Bar was going through a bit of a crisis after king Florian had died, his heirs fighting each other for their rightful spot on the throne. And his mother and her family were close friends with the king and his family, serving him and various other members of the royal family for years as their personal guard - which meant there was a chance of her getting hurt during this time.

Soren glances over at his desk, littered with multiple crumpled papers and various feathered pens. Maybe he should write to her? Viren wasn’t around anymore to tell him what to do, and she was the only family he had left, maybe now would be a good time to see if he could at least try to salvage what he could.

Once he cleared his desk of the crumpled papers of his botched poetry drafts and found a few unused sheets of parchment, along with a pen and a pot of ink that was still usable, Soren set about writing a letter. Twice he scrapped the letter drafts and tossed them aside before he finished and decided it was good enough to send. Ezran mentioned the Crow Lord, the man in charge of receiving all of the mail in the castle and sending it out and caring for the crows used to deliver said mail was still out and no one knew when he was coming back, but his assistant was still available to help. Well, as long as someone could help him send this letter without accidentally sending it to the wrong kingdom.

Once he had made his way to the crow tower and reached the top, Soren was greeted with the sound of very irritated crows and someone shouting for them to calm down. Curious and worried, he opened the door to find numerous crows flying wildly around the room and a lone man wearing a black robe was rushing about trying to grab them and put them back into some empty cages.

“No no! Come on!” The man groans as he tried grabbing one crow off the desk that was pecking at some papers before it launched itself into the air. “Ugh, one of you just had to learn how to unlock your cage and unlock the other cages!”

“Well that’s unexpected.” Soren murmurs before quickly shutting the door behind him. “Uh, is this a bad time? I could come back when you’re...not busy with...that?”

“Oh no it’s fine! This is under control! Just give me a moment!”

“You sure? I think you could use some help.”

“No no I got it!”

Soren stood back and watched as the crows were soon rounded back into their cages before the man locked the last one and immediately sat himself at the desk.

“Okay, how can I help you?” The Crowmaster asks politely.

“I need this sent to Del Bar.” Soren says as he places the rolled up paper onto the desk. “I don’t have a seal for this one, could I get this sealed like the other?”

“Of course! I have a seal here that you can use, the Crow Lord mostly uses it to seal letters given to him by anyone who doesn’t have their own personal seal or who isn’t the king.” The Crowmaster says as he opened a drawer and pulled out a small seal stamp to show him. “Just a little simple crow stamp, nothing too fancy. Hand me the letter?”

Soren hands him the rolled up letter, watching as the Crowmaster grabbed a nearby candle and poured a blotch of hot wax onto it before he grabbed the seal to press down on it.

"How long will this take, exactly?" Soren asks as the Crowmaster removes the seal and gets up from the desk to walk to one of the cages.

"A few days, less than a week if the weather is good." The Crowmaster says as he unlocks the cage and removes the crow from it. Once the bird had been removed, the Crowmaster carefully opened its talons to place the letter into it, before walking to a nearby window to open it and release the bird into the air. “And done! Your letter is now on it’s way to Del Bar, hopefully in a week or so you’ll get a response.”

“Good, good! Iwas hoping for that.” Soren says with a sigh of relief as the other man walks back to the desk and seats himself. “So, is there anything I need to do? I know my last letter was a rush job, but I don’t know if there’s anything I need to sign for sending a letter so far to another kingdom.”

“Oh there’s nothing else to do.” The Crowmaster assures him with a chuckle. “So...how would you rate this service you at least got today? Like an excellent, maybe a six out of ten because of the crow mess?”

“Uh...excellent, I guess? The crow thing was totally not your fault I’m sure and you didn’t take too long to get it under control, a good ten out of ten!”

“Oh good! Last time something like this happened the guy who needed a letter sent gave us a really low rating, and another time this happened before I was ever hired when we lost nearly all the crows in the tower!”

“That must have been a sight.” Soren laughs, earning him a laugh from the Crowmaster. “Well, I better head back to my duties. Thanks for the help!”

“Anytime!”


	2. The Gift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually cried writing the last of this, hope it makes you emotional as well

_Del Bar_

  
“Auntie, you got a letter!” Lissa looks up from polishing her sword to see her nephew Magnus poking his head through the doorway of her room with a rolled up parchment in his hand. “It’s got a funny seal on it, but I think it’s the seal used by the Katolian Crow Lord for normal letters.”

“Oh, I wonder who sent this.” She says as she puts her sword to the side and motions for the young teen to enter before accepting the letter. When she broke open the seal, she was quite surprised to find it was signed from Soren, whom she hadn’t heard from in months since the early spring after she had gotten his letter about becoming a captain of the crownguard. For years whenever she could, she’d try to write at least two letters every week to her children, but they never responded, though she had suspected Viren was intercepting the letters and just tossing them away unless they were birthday letters.

 _I wonder what he and his sister have been getting up to._ Lissa wonders before she begins to read Soren’s letter.

_Dear mom, in case you are wondering who this is, this is Soren writing to you. I know, shocking since I haven’t really written to you in quite a while. Anyways, I am writing to you now because something happened to dad and Claudia, and I was thinking maybe I should try to repair things with you especially since you and everyone on your side of the family are the only family related to me that I have left now._   
_Things have been a bit rocky with dad since you left, and I wish I had actually kept in touch with you more. But now that he’s not here anymore to tell me what to do and all that, I want to be able to write to you whenever I can if my crownguard captain duties don’t take up too much of my time. I’m sure you’ve probably heard what’s happened in Katolis, seen the weird magma soldiers who came back from the war with Xadia, so you probably know what happened to dad and Claudia. Just letting you know right now that I did not take his side in this war, I instead chose to side with my true king (Ezran) and stay at his side._   
_Right now things are going great at the castle; I’m training new recruits for the crownguard with this other guard named Marcos, I get to train with this Moonshadow elf named Rayla, still no luck in training Callum to be better at sword fighting or other things he should be good at but at least he can defend himself with magic so that’s something, and recently we started to clear out dad’s old study and that lab he has behind the old painting in his room. And you’d never believe who we found when clearing the place out, Mister Flameo! He’s all dirty and missing his eyes, and he’s got a lot of rips and missing stuffing in a lot of places where I think some mice got to him. I’ve been trying to fix him myself but I think being hidden in dad’s lab and covered in dust may have messed up the fabric because every time I tried to sew a tear close it just ripped or a new one suddenly appeared. So for now he’s just sitting at my desk untouched until I can figure out how to fix him without destroying him completely, or wait for the castle tailor to have a light work load and ask her if he’s salvageable._   
_Anyways, I hope things are good in Del Bar right now, and I hope you and the rest of the family are safe. Maybe one of these days if Ezran needs to take a trip to Del Bar I can squeeze in a quick visit if we’re not too busy. Say hi to grandpa, my aunts and uncle, and my cousins for me, will you?_   
_Sincerely, your son, Soren_

“Huh, so he took that toy I worked so hard on and now it’s ruined.” Lissa sighed as she set the letter down and pinched the bridge of her nose. Ancients help her, she knew Viren was a bit temperamental, but she never thought he’d take away their son’s favorite item of comfort and hide it after she left for who knows what reason. She knew how much Soren loved that old toy, practically refused to part from it when she wanted to wash it after he had recovered from a particularly awful cold. But it was heartwarming that he wanted to fix it after finding it in such an awful state, and it did sound like the old toy was unsalvageable.

 _Maybe now that the war was over, Viren is now gone, we can at least repair this. I wonder what even happened to Claudia, I do hope she’s alright._ Lissa thinks as she gets up from her seat and walks over to the large chest she kept in the corner of her room. She had heard that her ex-husband had perished during the battle, and Claudia had not been found, but all she could hope was that her daughter was at least safe and would have the sense to return her brother and not pursue dark magic anymore.

Inside the chest were various colored fabrics, a small wooden box filled with her threads, a jar of colorful buttons, and another box with various sewing supplies. Ever since she was young her parents insisted she and her brother learned how to sew so they could fix their own clothes and uniforms if they ever got torn. At one point after her brother had married she had taken up learning how to make little stuffed toys for his future children. And when she was pregnant with her son, she would use the time she had during the last days of her pregnancy to sew a large stuffed dragon that she later gifted to Soren when he turned a year old. She still had the designs for the various parts of that dragon somewhere in the chest, which she managed to find under the fabrics.

_It’s not much, and this may take me some time, but maybe this can bring a smile to his face._

\---

_Late winter, Katolis_

  
“Hey Soren, now that it’s your birthday, are you going to open that package your mom sent you a few months back?” Ezran asks his friend as they were eating their dinner (breakfast foods of course, as it was the tradition of Soren’s birthday). “You’ve mentioned about being tempted to open it before your birthday was around the corner.”

“Can you blame me? I’ve been curious to see what’s even in it!” Soren laughs as he cuts a piece of his pancakes before biting into it.

A few months ago, around early fall to be precise, Soren had received a package from Del Bar along with the latest letter from his mother, this one instructing him not to open the package until his birthday because his gift was in it. Right now it was hiding under his bed to prevent him from being tempted to open it so soon, but he swore to open it after reading the letter he recently got this morning from his mother.

“Okay I am stuffed.” Callum groaned as he pushed away his plate of pancakes away from him towards Bait, who was busy eating some jelly tarts. “And I think I’m gonna be sick of pancakes and bacon for the next week.”

“Poor you.” Soren laughs as the glow toad decides to snatch a pancake from the discarded plate. “Well, I’d like to head back to my room. Am I dismissed, Ezran?”

Huh? Oh! You are dismissed for tonight.” Ezran says with a wave of his hand. “Enjoy the night off.”

With a nod, Soren gets up from the table and leaves. It had been a good birthday so far, Bait waking him up with a slimy lick on the cheek with Ezran and Callum at his bedside with a plate of jelly tarts and singing a bit off key, but it was a sweet gesture from them. Normally every year he’d tell everyone in advance when his birthday was so they wouldn’t forget, but this year he didn’t since he was a bit too busy dealing with his duties to even remind everyone, yet everyone actually seemed to surprise him. His soldier friends surprised him with a small cake they got from Barius, Corvus had sent him a book of writing poetry for beginners (probably because he commented how his poetry needed some work after reading him a piece he was working on), even general Amaya and Gren had sent him gifts consisting of a book on sign language (from Gren of course) and knife (from Amaya). The rest of the day was spent doing his duties and eating breakfast foods for all three meals, but now he could at least spend it in his room and see what his mother sent.

The package was still under his bed, covered in a thin layer of dust while the latest letter from his mother sat unopened on his desk. Soren grabbed the package out from under his bed and sat himself at his desk to grab the letter.  
Well, here goes nothing. He tells himself before breaking the dark blue seal.

_My dearest son, I hope by the time you get this letter it's already your birthday. I'm sorry for not being able to come and celebrate it with you myself the way I hoped, but maybe within the next month I’ll actually have the chance to accompany our new queen and be able to see you again._   
_After receiving the first letter I had gotten from you since you’ve began living your new life, I had began working on this special gift for you. It was originally meant to be your gift for the winter festives, but I thought you’d actually like it more as a birthday present. I hope it can bring you as much joy as the first gift I ever made for you, and perhaps it can bring you some comfort until I come to Katolis to help fix Mister Flameo if his damage is not as bad as we think._   
_With lots of love, mom_

Curious, Soren sets down the letter and grabs the package from his desk. He carefully removes the thick string that kept it tied together before carefully removing the paper, gasping in surprise when he sees what it was. It was a stuffed dragon, looking almost like Mister Flameo but made with soft red and black fabric with bright blue eyes, yellow scales scattered around its body, and a little pink cloth sticking out of its mouth to resemble a tongue. Kind of looked more like the red dragon he finally managed to make amends with recently than Flameo, who seemed to resemble a storm dragon.

 _Did...did she really make this for me after I wrote to her about how bad Mister Flameo was when I found him?_ Soren thinks as he holds up the dragon to examine it. _She said she hoped it'd bring me as much comfort as my first dragon until he got fixed, maybe it will be almost as comforting._

He remembered the first night without Mister Flameo, how he missed the comfort the worn blue dragon used to bring him when he'd hug it tightly. His father had been angry about something, probably about his mother. The next thing he knew he was yanking the stuffed toy out of his hands, telling him he was too old for such childish things and to stop clinging to something that was possibly infested with his old germs. There were so many times throughout these ten years that he wanted to do nothing more but hold that dragon that brought him comfort, and soothed him into feeling okay again.  
Soren held the toy dragon to his chest and tightly wrapped his arms around it the way he used to hug Mister Flameo. It felt comforting to hold this dragon, though it was a bit stiffer than the other but that was probably because this one was new and Flameo had gotten worn down over the years from his right hugging. He could feel his eyes welling up with tears as he held the dragon tightly, before he felt one slip down his cheek.

"Thank you mom, this was the best gift you could have ever given me." He whispers. "Thank you."


End file.
